Home Improvements

[Ladogaboy]

Saw this article regarding ROI on home improvements, but I couldn't help but notice that they omitted solar panels.

http://homes.yahoo.com/news/home-imp....html?page=all

We all know that solar panels will recoup their costs based on reduced power bills in 10 to 15 years; however, given the value of solar panels, how long would an actually installed solar array take to pay for itself if you also take into account the value added to the property as a result of the hardware?

[MTN Ranger]

Some state allow even faster ROI due to tax credits. My state has a 35% credit plus the Federal credit of 30% is an amazing 65% off. Plus we get 80% reduction in property tax value of the panels.

[saghost]

If I remember it right, my real estate agent told me that they generally figured you could get an extra thousand dollars of sale price for every $10 decrease in monthly bills (which itself is thus an 8 year payback for the potential buyer.)

$120 a year at (for easy math, and near the national average) $.12 per kWh is a thousand kWh per year. in this part of the country, they say that 4.5 hours of direct sun is a good year round equivalency (Haven't had my panels for a full year yet, so no personal experience.) 4.5*365 = 1642 kWh per kW of nameplate capacity. So that ~$1k increase in sale price would be for about 600 W, which at typical $4-5 per watt installed costs is ~$2500-$3k of investment.

So if the rule of thumb of my real estate agent is right, at typical power prices the next buyer will pay around a third of the cost of the panels for the convenience of not paying the bigger power bill.

[bonaire]

In Hawaii, they are like NC in that they give a 35% state rebate on top of the 30% federal. You'd be nuts not to do Solar on HI if someone lived there. Per-kWh on HI is like .35/kWh.

here in PA, my rate is 16.5 cents right now. 5 miles west, it is .11. Very fickle atmosphere. I just decided to finally go Solar and the 8KW array I'll be doing will pay for itself in 10 years (only 30% federal credit, no more state incentive). My price per watt when I include sales tax is just about $4.90/Watt due to needing 1/2 of it to be ground-mounted. I wanted to go lower but I'm just tired out from all the research and such. Hopefully will be up and running by end of November but I imaging things will slow down and it will be our Christmas present. One big point is all parts going into mine are USA-made. It would be about $4/watt if Chinese panels were used.

[Ladogaboy]

Interesting. So between the tax credits and property value, most arrays would seem to pay for themselves very quickly, or in the case of MTN Ranger, they would be free!

[saghost]

Interesting. So between the tax credits and property value, most arrays would seem to pay for themselves very quickly, or in the case of MTN Ranger, they would be free!

With the caveat that it's paper value, and therefore subject to the vagaries of the market, I think that's about right. I certainly don't regret my investment.

[flmark]

When I had my house appraised a couple years ago, it became clear that solar PV is too new of a wrinkle to the housing market, and too sparse, to show up in meaningful statistics. Sooner or later, the critical mass will be there and lenders will have to take notice.

[solar_dave]

100_0092.jpg

Don't forget to tell you insurance company about your install. It did raise my bill a bit. We have 100% property tax relief on solar and a $1000 state tax credit.